Re: Cheers for GoGo.

[nospam [at] south-of-heaven.demon.co.uk]

> Well, gogo is at least 40 to 50% faster than lame on my machine (which it is
> based on), probably down to a mix of the assembler and the MMX instructions.
> I don't know if you remember a program called Fastcad for DOS...it was the
> fasted CAD I'd ever seen running on a 286, mostly because it was 100%
> assembler. You could *really* tell the difference.

Cliche: That was then, this is now.
I bet the CAD programs of today are a little more complex.
Bigger programs need higher level languages to keep them sane.

> As far as what I'd code? Dunno - its been about 4 years since I last touched
> 80x86 assembly, so I'm going to be a bit rusty to start with...I'm mostly an
> experimental coder, so I'll play with what I want. Personally, I have no
> problems with assembly, but that could be due to the Speccy, CBM Pet and BBC
> I used to have and code on (so it's not a sea-change for me). Curiously
> enough as well, you still do a lot of assembler in engineering fields (which
> I have done), with Z80's and 68000's being used as embedded controllers.

But look at all the new embedded systems available. There are several that run
Java.
In the present day of complex CPUs and powerful computers assembly is much
less useful than it used to be. Streamlining a particular algorithm to fit nicely in the
cache is one of the few real advantages.

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